Google to welcome first Irish start-up to Silicon Valley event

Beats Medical has become the first Irish company to be invited to present at Google’s demo day, held in the tech giant’s Silicon Valley base in November.

Expanding significantly since its first demo day in 2014, Google will welcome Ciara Clancy’s Beats Medical as the first Irish company to feature at the event, as part of a new ‘women’s edition’.

Beats Medical, along with 800 other applicants from 65 countries, applied for one of only 11 spots at the event. Now that it has been picked, Clancy’s company will present to a team of renowned technology investors.

Google demo day

Clancy’s relationship with Google goes back a long way. Representing her company last year, she won €10,000 worth of AdWords credit after her Parkinson’s treatment company came out on top in Google’s Adopt a Start-up programme.

Seeing off competition from 31 other businesses – including the likes of CoderDojo and Glofox – Beats Medical took top prize after Clancy’s seven-minute pitch on her company’s developed digital strategy was judged the best of the bunch.

That wasn’t the first time Clancy has been recognised for her achievements, as she was named Laureate for Europe at the Cartier Women’s Initiative Awards in October.

“Demo day is a great opportunity to spread awareness for Parkinson’s and the treatments we have available,” she said. “We are looking forward to sharing our work with more people in the US.”

Already a finalist in this year’s EY Entrepreneur of the Year Competition, the opportunities from this event could prove particularly significant.

Investor judges in previous years have included Steve Case, founder of AOL, who has invested $1.4m in companies who took part in the last demo day.

History

Clancy worked for several years with sufferers of Parkinson’s in Ireland, both as a physiotherapist and volunteer.

She launched Beats Medical in 2012, which sports a smartphone app that provides ‘specialised cueing treatment’ for Parkinson’s patients, which is basically sound wave treatment that enables people to regain mobility.

She spoke of her experiences setting up Beats Medical at Inspirefest in 2015.